Sonic's System

I know what your saying but I have to say that my simple set up delivers what you are saying your not getting. It's hard to talk numbers when the Beatles are sitting in the room with you. Also I get the same huge stage with my FM. My system doesn't even know there are speakers in the room. To go one step further the music doesn't know it's playing in a room. I do have to give a lot of credit to the new cones and spikes.

Do you have Abbey Road? If so lets play a game of sound stage and recording info. It will tell you what your setup is doing. I did this at Bill's place and brought my system back here to the place where it was blowing the setup there away. I can only imagine what will happen when I get back there with new toys but in the meantime I'm taking huge musical and staging jumps.

A couple other issues.

When you say "by pass" what are you doing exactly? What are you using for a transport with the DAC?

Secondly I have only 2 things plugged into my electrical setup, how many pieces in your setup are plugged in? This means a huge difference between the two setups!

My system when you think about it is almost unfair. We can do a little comparison (I'm not trying to be mean in any way, you know that) between the 2 systems and play the same music to see the differences. I guarantee that the removal of parts and pieces that are over working combined with the removal of mass will take your setup to a place you never thought possible.

Sometimes I do feel a little bad when I'm talking systems but it is only based on knowing a system's limitation vs a system that runs free of almost all blockage. I do know the audiophile attachment that develops, even with the tune, but it's my job to answer the tough questions in the long run.

Hi Michael

Tell me what to look for in Abbey Road. I don't have it...but I can easily pick up a copy.

Bypass means I disconnected the V-DAC and took it out of my system completely, wall wart and all, the whole thing is physically out of my room like it was never there. The wires, shelf, springs and canopy are out as well. The audio signal output of the CD player goes into the preamp input via a Bare Essence interconnect (loosened).

Sonic

Yes

Please do pick up a copy and we will walk through the recording together. We can ask each other sound stage questions and tonal balance.

So are you using the Sony transport when you go straight to the preamp and the same one as the front of the V DAC?

Do you use the same output off the Sony either way?

Hi Michael

The V-DAC is connected to the Sony DVD player's digital out. The Sony's audio out goes to the pre-amp. Right now the V-DAC and everything related to it has been removed.

I'll go look for an Abbey Road CD. Though I don't have one, I know some of the tracks -- Something, Come Together and Octopus' Garden. Shall we start with Comne Together? Tell me something I should look for.

With the V-DAC bypassed/removed, the first impression I get of the Sony direct to the preamp is a slightly higher volume, a more forward but less smooth/sweet sound and improved ambience.

Sonic may be sceptical but these are not necessarily improvements but may be signs of a rfeduced dynamic range. A compressed signal will be subjectively sound louder, the ambience becomes more noticeable because the softer bits now are louder. The V-DAC also sounds smoother than the Sony -- that could be the lack of beats and filter issues with the V-DAC.

But one hour of music playing time won't tell much, so we persevere.

Sonic

hi Sonic

For years I have encouraged people to get involved with me in listening. I'm glad you are doing so.

The very first thing I do when starting with Abbey Road is go to the 10th track to develop my starter stage. Keep in mind that I've been listening with no high frequency brightness which is my own personal thing but people may do what they wish. I like turning bright into air. Detail and bright are not the same thing at all in my book. if I ever hear bright I know that I've got blockage and this blockage is almost always caused from something in the system being too heavy.

got my ears on

So, I pop on 10 and with one 5 second adjustment on the canopy over the receiver I start listening. I have my tape measure by just so I can paint a little picture. The crickets (sounds like a single cricket) are 35' wide and 25' deep start to finish. There is a very nice movement that happens with no jumps across the stage and not a cricket near the speakers ever. You can hear the tape loop stop and start midstage but it stays right in place. A good start. The crickets are very defined with a medium space around them. It definately puts me outside. The center of the cricket image is about 8' tall but this can be put anywhere height wise. I'll leave it where it is at cause I like it and move on. I start the song again and listen to the mallets hitting the cymbals. This song along with the rest of the recording is a panning masterpiece. This is demonstrated by the romantically paced cymbal hitting that goes on while the cymbals are paned along with the guitar. While the cricket starts his journey the instruments begin on the opposite side 10' left of center The first splash goes from left to right starting about 3' left of my left speaker and flows across the stage. As soon as it dies another hit of the cymbal starts, and this continues. The drums starting in the same general area also makes the soft gentle pan left to right. These are both very important cause they make the movement of the guitar very pleasing as they support the space and fill it with a sound wall deep and rich. Once the drums make it to the right side the stage is full of air and stays full to greet the vocals. But while your waiting you are taken away by the movement sweeping from side to side while staying very full. As soon as the drums arrive there are no holes in the stage anywhere. It's like sitting in a 3D movie. The bass stays very stable as the rest of the music moves. It's nice to go back to the bass once in a while to hear it deal with it's recording blips but who cares It's part of the fun.

So there you have it my first minute into the sun king.

BTW, at anytime if you hear something happen in the music that is cool let me know so if I don't get it I can make it happen. I love playing!

Hi Michael

I must get a copy of Abbey Road...

Can you describe a couple of things -- I understand that your speakers are listened to nearfield, can you give a picture of how Sun King plays out front to back in the room? Do any of the instruments go behind your head, do any images appear in line with your shoulders and what occupies the front corners/front wall of your room when this track is played?

Also Sonic wonders, how loud do you estimate you are listening -- what do you guesstimate the peaks and average dB level would be so I can sync my listening level to something similar to yours. Don't need top use a sound level meter, just an estimate will do. Sonic asks because ideally as we listen together, we must obviously be listening to the same programme and also at relatively similar levels. Or the experience will be significantly dissimilar.

About the new cones:

Are you suggesting that they are of an order beyond the MTDs you last made and that Tunees with MTDs under their PZCs, DRTs, aeroplanes and speakers should consider replacing them with the new cones. Ditto with rods used in the racks and canopies to the new rods you're making?

Sonic

Hi Michael

Here's the difference between the Sony CD player and with the V-DAC after a couple of days settling/running in.

Sony: noticeably louder, more detailed, more upfront but a bit in-your-face, slightly rough, open sounding

V-DAC: smooth, sweet strings, even tonal balance, slightly more distant sound, slightly lower subjective volume for a given preamp setting, warmer hinting of tube sound.

The contrast is sort of between a Klipshorn and a Spendor BC1.

But the Sony allows a slightly more noticeable rounding of images thru the walls. Not much, but in the direction of Sonic's "Hoped For" diagram.

Comments if you will on this, on the approximate volume t use for Abbey Road and the application of the new cones and rods to my system.

Sonic

Hey, Mr. Green and Sonic,

It's been awhile since anyone has done what you two are doing with the back and forth listening. I think it's cool and I just want to say good listening and I hope you get the results you seek.

Robert

Thanks Robert

Did you receive your tunes yet?

Sonic

I will adjust the volume to what ever you wish when you get Abbey Road. Speaking of volume, my system is not all that sensitive to having the perfect volume to cast an entertaining stage with tons of detail. In the past I know I have had to have a system setting just so when listening. And I do feel that there is an optimum but with this setup the range is wider than usual.

When you get the Abbey Road playing on that first part of cut 10 and report back we will have tons to talk about.

Hearing your description so far it sounds like the V DAC is not giving you as much signal and the Sony is giving you a signal that needs more musicality and depth is this correct? Which one gives you more information to work with? I'm not hunting for a taste answer but raw information.

Let me give you an example. My Mag throws in front of me tons of info. Enough that I can spend years tuning it. If a DAC will give me what the Mag does and more then it is time for me to look for that next step. If it is only giving me different that's not the same as more. Meaning I hear people saying different up to this point I don't hear them saying more. I hear them describe a tube like sound because they don't know how to get their system to not sound (solid state-ish) or (less forward or brittle). This concerns me cause I have seen this same thing happen before. More parts used, dampen the rough edges, so on. If a DAC + Sony is more you should be able to reproduce both the good you hear from the Sony's DAC and the V DAC.

Q. are we talking DAC or chip here?

Q. what are the key components to a DAC?

Hi Sonic

Just wanted to let you know I've started a thread in tuning called "the Abbey Road experience.

Hi Michael, Robert and Bill333

Sonic’s system is starting to image beyond the side walls! I am getting about 3 feet of extension outside the walls in the volume behind the speaker plane, but nothing in the plane of the speakers. I am hearing this now repeatedly on CDs such as Gimmell choral recordings and orchestral pieces like Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings (St Martin-in-the-Fields) and Michael Haydn’s string quintets.

How did Sonic work this out? Like in many things of the Tune, it was a number of things done that eventually settled to a good outcome. Sonic will elaborate on this in my next few posts but it involved significantly unloading the weight of the bookcases, ¼ loosening all interconnects and adjusting the reflectivity characteristics of the side doors. Wish it was, but no, the expansion of the acoustic did not come with a magic move of turning a DRT by ½ inch or a ¼ turn of a bolt on the rack and kapow! everything fell into place. There was work involved….

Now to answer Robert’s question: out of phase.

Sonic used a solo recording of a mezzo-soprano and another of minimal miked (blumlein most likely given its focus and narrowed tight imaging) recording of guitar and percussion for this test.

Mezzo: the sound went all round the listener as expected but it was a shallow ellipse from just ahead of the speakers and towards the back of the room. Imaging was poor and diffuse but I could visually image the singer anywhere within a 270 degree frontal arc. The sound did not go beyond the walls, ambience was truncated and sort of cone shaped. Height was ceiling to floor. Small movements of the head made large swings in image position.

Guitar/percussion – much the same effects except the transients made location easier and created what was “bad stereo”, some imaging and focus within the speaker plane and rear space. But diffuse, strange ambience, height, shallow behind the speaker plane.

Sounds like the out of phase signals were tracking the weight distribution in Sonic’s room with its rearward weight bias. Also the effect told me a lot about what the Tune and the gear could be doing. The PZCs, DRTs, Corner Tunes, EchoTunes, Shutters and baffles may be effectively introducing uncorrelated information into the sound field. Now this is good because uncorrelated info gives width, size and positioning information in the real world and in conventional stereo too. Which is possibly why the Tune, even out of phase, in Sonic’s system generated poor stereo instead of the total swimmy effect characteristic of out of phase systems. A note: for this test, my system was run with the subwoofer off. Sonic did not see this as an issue since I am driving the Magneplanars near full range using the x-30’s lowest hi-pass crossover point of 50 Hz.

Michael and Bill333 -- Here comes the Sun King:

The crickets, maybe a few large ones, are formed in a sphere about 4 feet wide. They start at the top of the Right speaker (at the top 1 foot of the 5.5 foot panel and up towards the ceiling). There are also hints of ambient mini crickets like a haze all round the room.

The crickets are pan potted and move to the Left as the cymbal and the guitars are pan potted to the Right.

As the piece progresses, the sphere of crickets moves Leftward at about 7 to 8 feet height across my room in the middle of the area behind my speakers, they don’t go to the front wall or arc upwards. When the crickets reach the middle of the room somewhere over the racks the chirping stops for an instant then starts again. The crickets keep moving – by now the cymbals and guitars have moved past the midpoint to the Right – and crickets go slightly above the Left speaker but do not sit on the panel….crickets next go forward of Left panel by a foot or two, then fades through the door.

The bass stays on the Left speaker, the cymbal and guitars are moving slightly behind the panels and speaker plane. The first cymbal crash goes to the sidewall and is distinct from the guitar.

Odd isn’t it that the three of us are hearing the same piece but getting such different impressions….

Views from Michael and Bill333?

Sonic

Hi Michael

Left out one point on Sun King -- apart from the main Chorus of Crickets that moves Right to Left, there is also another group of crickets chirping at a lower pitch (almost "ribbit, ribbit") and at a lower level in rthe mix. The spatial position of this bunch of crickets is more diffuse and harder to localise. Also if I focus on the main group-chirp and try to follow it as it is panpotted, I get less feel of a large space of the insects than if I looked to the centre or Left when the crickets start...

Cymbals - on my system, they sure don't sound like high pitched tin plates. The lower pitched "bong" and some spread spatially is present. Only thing is the cymbals don't have enough of that beautiful expanding shimmer that goes on up and up the frequency range.....I can hear this when live drums are played in front of me. I can also hear a softly played cymbal "activating" the acoustic of the studio, defining the space, such as Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, in the opening seconds of "So What" -- the ride cymbal starts soft where it defines the space on the Right then picks in volume and the beat as the famous riff progresses over the first bars of the piece.

Comments on my cymbals....?

Sonic

Hi Michael

Sonic's system is for sure constrained/limited in Left-Right width but height reproduction is very good. I can "hear" thru the ceiling and the floor. I can, on some recordings, hear if the microphones are suspended high over the performers/ensemble/instruments or if the microphones are placed up in a loft of some kind.

Front to back depth is OK and ambience to the rear of the room goes far back enough...but the Left-Right width is lacking.

Michael -- can you suggest some steps and products Sonic can take into the system to get that bigness?

I wonder too....if it is a good idea if i supported my Janis W-1 subwoofer on three or four Gen 1 cable grounds (the four legged things made from hemlock wood)? Right now the Janis W-1 subwoofer is sitting almost directly on the floor but resting on some 1/4 inch MW slices.

Sonic

Hey Michael...you forgot Sonic in your posts yesterday.....your steps to opening up my soundstage....?

In the meantime, here's something Sonic did that might point somewhere but i don't know where or what yet.

Sonic heaved the Janis W-1 subwoofer up on three Gen 1 Cable Grounds (the ones of hemlock wood fibre with 4 feet).

I don't know if they can take the weight of the Sub long term before buckling but now ther Janis W-1 is about 6 inches off the floor.

The bass vanished!

No it didn't...it tightened up a lot so the first impression was the bass is rolled off a bit.

Listen on and the bass transients have more "leading-edge" effect. Kick drums now have a tone...not just as tight dub dub dub sound. When the bass goes down deep (synths going 40hz and lower), there is less room interference so now deep notes are heard less and felt more.

The other thing is the stage has opened. I won't claim things go into parallel dimensions (as Robert put it n icely) but certainly more open in space. A slight loss of volume but a little compensation on the pre amp makes up nicely. This could be less mud in the low end and less compression/more dynamics in the system and room interaction.

Sonic

Hey, Sonic,

I hope that works out for you. I am a fan of bass you can feel more than hear. Are you feeling it your chest cavity, rattling your innards?

Robert

Hi Robert
Sonic might not describe the effect either way exactly. More that when the signal is low and clean, it is one of room pressure rising and abating in cycles.  If I had to pick, it is towards chest pressure and not rattling innards. But remember I am a quiet listener. My average levels, particularly classical small scale works are on the upper 70dBs. That's seriously soft to many audiophiles I think. Of course I have cranked up my system and got peaks of up to 100dB and it is a whole different sound.  But I am tuning for levels which the late Peter Walker called "natural".  You know with the Tune I feel I can tell roughly what levels a recording was mixed down at in the studio.Which is why I occasionally ask listeners on this site what their average listening levels are (but haven't got a reply yet) -- but there is a big difference in a system sounding at 85 dB peaks and 100 dB peaks for sure.  
Sonic

Hey, Sonic,

I should pay more attention. Your system is purely for music listening, so I only in rare cases would your innards rattle. I was thinking of motion picture soundtracks when I mentioned such.

Hi fellow Zonees

Sonic’s system is making progress…and some of the things I did may be ideas to consider for other friends of the Tune

First, I removed more than 2/3s of the books in my bookcases. Now that was more than a 100 lbs worth of hardcover books and lots of magazines. This made a big difference -- the room, the ambience started to “glow”. So for friends like Robert who are taking weight and stuff out from their listening areas, this has an effect.

Next, I looked at the weight distribution in my room and given that my room (imagine it is a plate balanced on a central pivot) has a rearward and left tilt, I used whatever remaining books there were on the RH shelves to balance things out.

This showed up an imbalance in the PZs on the right and left of the room. Now unbalanced PZs can lead to a central/mono image drifting Left or Right but in some cases like mine, the image is stays centred but the girth and size of images are stronger on one side than the other.

I angled the side wall Shutters on the weaker side towards the listening chair and angled the Shutters on the strong side away from the listening chair.

The amount of angling off 90 degrees was small, something like 20 degrees. 45 degrees is too much and tips the Pressures Zones over and confuses them. Too much angling reduce the effectiveness of the Shutters.

With a small angling it is very good. The instruments and voices became equal in girth Right and Left. This can be tested by swapping the channels round if you like. Also the Shutters need to be slightly tightened to sound best….just a bit…just that bit of connection.

So it was an evening of Dvorak’s string quartets and medieval choral pieces (The Garden of Zephirus – Gothic Voices, Hyperion). Some orchestral works I also tried gave me the impression that sections of the ensemble were playing in a space wider than my room width. Getting there I think.

However, with the Dvorak and the Gothic Voices, Sonic heard something I didn’t get as clearly before. The Magneplanars are giving very transparent music and the tone is good enough for the music to be decoupled from the speakers but the size of the panels either visually but also audibly become a factor in the room. They interact with the room given their size and cause their presence to be noticed.

Hey Michael, let's hear from you.

Sonic

Hi Robert and Zonees

Sonic has removed the pressure boxes from my tune closet for some time. I found on first application, the system sounds better with a box (maybe my imagination), but after running in, a narrow band deadness is audible.

How do I characterise this? It seems a narrow slice of energy has been removed from the music on the side of my room where the box is placed. The ambience also gets reduced. The question is how to relate this to conventional acoustics. The boxes usually have an effect at a fairly low frequency if they are about 15 inches x 15 inches x 20 inches. Perhaps the Q is narrow so a large suck out occurs. If the Q is broad, the amplitude effect will be small but the effect is spread over a wider range of frequencies.

What is clear is that the boxes aren't a Good Thing in Sonic's system. The dynamic range goes too with them.

Robert, perhaps you could try this -- play a piece of music of about 10 mins duration. Get used to the sound and at about the 3 minute point, quickly remove the pressure box out from your room while letting the music play on. Toss the box out as far as you can, then come back and carry on listening to the music. When the track ends, replay it again....see what you feel in your tuning-heart.

Sonic finds that once the box goes, a sense of relief is felt and I don't want the box back in the room.

Do post your expereince with this test....of course your experience might differ. Such is our ears and the Tune.

Sonic

Hi fellow Zonees

Sonic learnt something about comparative listening after the Abbey Road experiment -- I got hold of a another Beatles CD to get more of their music. It is an Anthology of the group's work so I now got two versions of Something -- one on Abbey Road and one on the Anthology.

The track sounds different -- not total remixes, similar enough but with enough differences to result in another description.

The Anthology Version compared to the Abbey Road mix:

Rhythm guitar in Left channel lower in level and less defined
Bass forward, loud and a bit wooly
Drum roll on Right channel runs along the side wall
Guitar solo further back slightly
Cymbals splashy

Abbey Road
Overall soundstage wider by a couple of feet Right and Left
Vocals are sharper and more crisp but slightly sibilant
The drum roll is in a space around and along the wall
The roll on the hi hat is clearer and has more bell rather than splash
The mellotron is clearer in definition where its odd sound starts and stops
Bass is tighter.
Cymbals have more tone.

Makes comparisons problematic doesn't it?

My Abbey Road is a recent reissue -- I wonder if we were all describing things in our threads using recordings that were not exactly similar ....it wasn't an Apples to Apples comparison

Sonic

Hi Sonic

In my book it is never truly apples and apples. However, I use the original sound recordings by EMI, re-mastered 1987 by EMI. There are several re-masters that are interesting but for this walk I'm using this one as my source.

I should put this on the thread.

Hi Zonees

Sonic has referred a couple of times to what the late Peter Walker said about playback and listening levels. Here is what he wrote in the handbook for the Quad ESL 57 (Bill333’s classic treasure) and this has influenced how Sonic sets up and listens to my system:

“At first thought it would appear that the purpose of a volume control is solely to enable the listener to have his music loud or soft according to his whim. Whilst it, of course, fills this requirement, it has a further purpose – that of adjusting the intensity of sound so that it is correctly related to the perspective as recorded or broadcast. If a voice is picked up close to a microphone in a very absorbent studio, then on reproduction that voice will take up a position at the centre of, and in the plane of the loudspeaker. For natural sound, therefore, the loudspeaker should radiate similar power to that of the original voice. If on the other hand the voice is picked up some way from the microphone in a more live studio, then the voice on reproduction will take up a position through the loudspeaker and a considerable distance behind it. It is clear the power required for the loudspeaker for natural sound is now very much less than in the first case. The position or perspective of the reproduced sound is fixed at the studio end and there is little that can be done at the listening end to alter it.

It follows that the volume setting for natural sound is to a large extent fixed at the studio end. Studio monitoring is usually carried out at a reasonable level and the whole aim, is to produce listening as from a favourable seat in the Concert Hall. Adjusting the volume control to a level to give this correct acoustic perspective will produce the most natural reproduction. The level is usually such that it is quite possible to speak to a person sitting next to the listener without raising the voice or turning down the sound level – as indeed this is possible in the Concert Hall. Raising the level to “bring the orchestra into the room” or turning it down to a low background will both distort the perspective, although this may have to tolerated on certain occasions. It should be pointed out that no amount of tone control or loudness control can affect the perspective, although these effect can be used to produce a new sound which although quite unlike the original is sometimes found acceptable.

Popular music is often recorded or transmitted with close microphone technique and would therefore tend to require reproduction at higher levels. It is in fact generally monitored at a higher level. There are number of other factors which have a strong bearing on optimum listening levels but it is outside the scope of this handbook to deal with these adequately. It will be realised that the volume control setting should receive careful attention and it can be emphasised that much listening is spoilt due to insufficient care on this point.”

Wise words from one of the greatest audio thinkers that Zonees should consider if not heed.

Sonic

Hi fellow seekers of the Tune

Sonic got gains in soundstage width and acoustic space-volume by tuning the two transformers of my main amp involving placing them on a mini-platform.

Up till now, these two transformers – they are toroids -- each sit on one large Harmonic Foot. The Harmonic Feet, were as you’d expect, much better sounding than just letting the transformers rest on the rack shelf or when they were supported by MW bars.
What Sonic tried was to take a spare MW piece (about 8 in x 5 in x ¼ in), place it on top of 4x early-version, pre-MTD cones from Tuneland, then the toroids went on this mini platform sitting on 3 narrow MW bars under each toroid. Placing the transformer directly on a surface sounds different and the examples of toroid tuning Sonic has seen in the Tuneland archives involves reducing the area of contact.

The cone tips rest directly onto the surface of the Michael Green hemlock wood chip shelf.

The transparency of the sound opened up from the moment the first track of musick played. I went through The Art of the Netherlands (Munrow, EMI), Pieces from John Playford’s Dancing Master (Arabesque), Kind of Blue (Miles Davis) and Music from the Time of Praetorius (Collegium Terpsichore/Fritz Neumeyer, Archiv).v The sounded was lively, paced well and hinted at the real musical experience. The settling in over the few days seems to be going in the right direction.

Sonic

Hi fellow Zonees

Sonic has been intrigued by a view heard from Harry Pearson and Albert von Schweikert – it goes something like this:

1. Your eye can see an arc – a single eye has a field of vision, right, left up, down.

2. An orchestra/band can be (and has been) recorded by a single microphone. These mikes are usually cardioids or omnis.

3. A microphone does not just pick up sound directly in front of it but also to the right and left of it.

4. A loudspeaker is the inverse of the microphone – a single loudspeaker can therefore deliver a spread of sound from a mono signal. You get a spread right and left of the speaker axis.

5. A stereo pair of speakers will give you a soundstage that stretches from one side of the room to the other.

That few audiophiles achieve this is explained away by the speakers or set up being flawed, phase incoherent.

The Absolute Sound advocates the Pearson Rule of Thirds – the speakers are placed at the intersections of the 1/3 points of the room, which in an average sized room put the speakers fairly close together. And if you are a Tunee this placement is way too close together.

Outside the Tune, Sonic has not really heard this expansive soundstage. Yesw, some minimonitor and once with the huge Infinity IRS but the side information, beyond the speaker outer edges was a little diffuse. And so it should be. Sonic does not see the logic of the analogy. The ear and eye are different sensory devices, a microphone indeed records sound to the right and left but resolves the information in terms of amplitude (unless there are effects like frequency-dependent labeling).

A single speaker will resolve direction as amplitude difference too. Listen to a mono recording of a symphony orchestra and you will hear the full orchestra but resolved to a point or a ball of sound depending on the radiation characteristics of the drivers. I have heard the big JBL 15inch woofer rigs and they give a nice fat mono. Quiet real when playing back mono jazz. There is no R-L information because the system needs another vector to define the direction – that is where a stereo pair comes in and gives a R-L and even a wall to wall spread. Theoretically there should be nothing outside the loudspeakers but ambience but when the tune starts giving girth, the Left images go far out Left and Right far out Right because of reference to the centre images and the ambience recorded into the signal.

So the issue of soundstaging is complex. Do the Absolute Sound people get the wide stage they claim? Do Von Scheweikert loudspeaker owner achieve this? I don’t think they are telling fables. Their systems are high quality and if set up right can give some big sound especially when played loud (and some reviewers state their playback levels – levels that Sonic finds appalling -- 103dB peaks at the listening seat!)

Music and system sound is something that is experienced and language is only an approximation when describing it. Sonic is aware of this as Zonees describe the sound of our systems. There is something there for sure but language is the only medium we can communicate the experience short of being physically there…and even then we can come away from the same system and two Zonees may describe it in ways -- similar enough to show we are talking about the same thing, yet different enough to cause some bewilderment even if it is of an enjoyable sort.

Back to Tuning.

Sonic stared at my Janis W-1 subwoofer. I noticed it rests on the floor by wooden lip running round the lower perimeter of the box. The real bottom of the woofer has no contact with the ground. More so now the Subwoofer is sitting on Gen 1 Cable Grounds from Michael.



Sonic said…Ground the Janis W-1…So I took a 2” x 2” x 1” MW block, drilled and tapped a hole on one narrow side for a 5/8” resitone rod from MGD and on the opposite side fitted a pre-MTD cone. The whole assembly is about 6” long. I wedged this device unsing MW slices (and using the rod to adjust the length to fit) at the centre of the Subwoofer bottom so vibrations are now conducted down to the floor with this grounding post.

I played Bach’s Brandenberg Concertos and couldn’t believe my ears. Then Bill Evans, Lester Young, Beethoven – the bass became so taut the system is almost lean. The upper bass opened up (and this is outside the Subwoofer’s pass band), the trebles got clearer. I could hear bowing and plucking yet I thought the bass is leaner than I am accustomed to…tried a synthesizer music piece with a 32 Hz note and the room shuddered.

Language and limitations of my vocabulary aside this was one good surprise and another proof of Michael's theories on mechanical grounding.

Sonic